Iced
by csyphrett
Summary: A new secret weapon is up for grabs and the team recieves some help from an outside medical examiner.


Iced

1

Doctor Cole Sear paused as he closed the door of his car. He had driven down to Quantico from Baltimore to talk to a potential witness. The problem behind his hesitation was he wasn't supposed to be asking any questions at all.

The police were supposed to be in his position, looking at a quiet house in a quiet neighborhood, wondering what the best approach should be.

He straightened his shoulders. He started for the door. This might be what he needed for the latest case in his office. He couldn't release the body without more than unexplained causes.

Cole noticed his breath had fogged over as he stepped on the porch of the house. He hunched in his coat. He might be too late to ask any questions of the one person he needed to talk to. He stood on the tips of his toes to look through insets set near the top of the door. He couldn't see inside.

He pressed the doorbell. He listened to the house. It had a stillness that he had learned to sense from his youth.

He rang the bell again. He could be wrong. There could be another reason for what he felt. It had happened before.

He checked the windows, but curtains blocked his view of the interior. He looked around. This was the only house with curtains down.

He rang a third time, but he had a feeling he had arrived too late. He had to get in to make sure.

He pulled out his phone and checked the contact numbers. He had one for the FBI training center that was based nearby. He also had one for a Provost office. He supposed it was a Provost office. He wasn't sure about the military terminology.

Marines were responsible for base security. He should call them before he did something stupid like break in.

"Captain Penning's office." The voice sounded about Cole's age. "Corporal Lerner speaking."

"My name is Cole Sear. I work for the Baltimore Medical Examiner's Office. I think I might have a problem at 2435 Kildare Street on base." Cole walked over and looked through the windows of the garage. Two cars stood inside. "I was hoping you could send a military policeman to this address for a welfare check."

"Problem?" Lerner sounded sharp, ready for anything.

"I don't know yet." He hated admitting that he might be instigating a wild goose chase. "I'm here to talk to a Captain L. Cressly, but no one is responding to the bell, and both cars are in the garage from what I can see."

"I'll send someone down to look things over." Lerner hung up the phone.

Cole had the feeling the corporal was the type of person to call Baltimore to make sure that he did work for the M.E. He put his phone away as he waited. He made sure he had his identification handy for when the marines did arrive.

He had a feeling they would ask more questions than what he had considered asking Cressly.

A staff car arrived in a few minutes. Two privates got out. They approached, but Cole noted they made sure to keep an interval in case he attacked. He smiled slightly.

He had never considered himself dangerous. He had spent a lot of his childhood a victim of bullying. He doubted he could take two armed soldiers in a physical confrontation.

"I'm Cole Sear." He raised one empty hand, then the other with his card from the M.E.'s office. "I called to ask for the welfare check."

"Capezzi and Davis." The marine took the wallet and examined the picture on the card, comparing it with Cole's face. "The corporal wasn't clear what was going on."

He handed the identification back.

"I have to ask Captain Cressly some questions about a case in Baltimore. No one has come to the door despite his cars being in the garage." Cole put the identification away. "Do you mind?"

"No problem." Capezzi went to the trunk of the car. "We can open the door and look around in a minute."

The private opened the trunk with a key. He reached in and pulled out a bag. He nodded at Davis. The other private hammered the door, listening at the wood.

"Don't hear anything." He tried the knob before he stepped away from the door. It refused to move.

"Something smells." Capezzi put his bag on the porch and opened it. He pulled out a device that looked like a drill with two thin rods where the bit would normally sit. He placed the rods in the dead bolt.

Cole sniffed but the scent didn't remind him of anything pertaining to his field.

Capezzi pulled the trigger on the pick gun. He took the rods out and placed them in the lock on the door handle. He pulled the trigger again. He tried the knob. It turned in his hand.

"We're going to go in and look around." Capezzi put the lock picker back in its bag. "Stay out here on the porch. If the captain isn't here, we'll lock everything up and no one will know we went in."

"I'm good with that." Cole put his hands in his pockets to avoid touching anything. He hoped they were doing the right thing. Maybe they should have got a warrant.

If the captain had gone off with someone, they would all be in hot water for breaking in.

"We might have a situation here." Davis called from somewhere in the living room. He pulled his phone and called for a medical transport. "Doc. Come in here. Make sure you don't touch anything."

Cole stepped into the house. He walked over to where the marines waited. He had to go around a couch. He frowned at the body on the carpeted floor. He knelt for a closer look.

"He's dead." He leaned closer. "There's something wrong with his face. The color seems off."

"Better ask for a coroner, Pete." Capezzi gestured for the doctor to follow him. "Let me get my camera. We need to record the scene before NCIS gets here."

Cole stepped out on the porch. He watched the interior as Capezzi went to his trunk and got a camera bag. He opened it and went back inside and began taking pictures of the body and the room around it.

Cole pulled his own phone out. He called the office to let them know the case he was working on had crossed jurisdictions. He didn't remember who was the detective who had landed the first body, but hopefully someone would call him before the marines did.

He told them to get copies of the first case file ready. The military would want to know the particulars of what he was working on to explain why he had drove down to talk to the dead man.

They would want copies of the files. He was sure that both deaths were connected. The color on Cressley seemed to match the first death.

The marines stepped out on the porch. Capezzi closed the door, cutting them off from the former owner of the house.

"I don't know what killed him, but it wasn't natural causes." Capezzi put his equipment back in the trunk of his car.

"There's going to be problems with the second death being here instead of in the city." Cole hoped not to have to deal with it.

"That will be up to NCIS." Capezzi closed the trunk. "Hopefully, you will get someone who will share the work."

Cole looked up at the gray sky. He doubted things would go that smooth.

2

Leroy Jethro Gibbs pulled to a stop behind the meat wagon his coroner used for transporting bodies. The coroner in question stood in his blue overall conversing with a much younger man in a coat and suit on the sidewalk. Gibbs got out of the car, pulling on the NCIS cap he wore at crime scenes.

"What have you got, Ducky?" Gibbs joined the conversation, cutting off some tale about zeppelins and girl geniuses.

"Don't know yet, Jethro." Dr. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard smiled at the lead investigator. "Dr. Sear and I think asphyxiation, but I won't know for sure until I get him home."

"Dr. Sear?" Gibbs turned his full attention on the stranger.

"I work for the Baltimore M. E." Sear shrugged. "We have a similar case and I had hoped to talk to the deceased about it."

"Why?" It was too coincidental that two men died the same way within days of each other.

"My victim, Arnold Krullil, worked for a company that contracted to the Navy. I had hoped that Captain Cressly could tell me something about what they did so I could figure out what happened to Arnold."

"I'll need copies of your reports." Gibbs looked for the rest of his team. "I'll also need a statement."

"I can get you the autopsy reports, but you'll have to talk to the detective in charge of the case to get access to their notes and evidence." Sear shrugged inside his coat.

Gibbs frowned at him. Of course he was going to get those notes. This was his case now.

"Come along, Dr. Sear." Ducky waved his colleague to follow. "Mr. Palmer should have the body secured by now. Let's see what he can tell us."

"I'll follow you in my car." Sear indicated his two decade old sedan. "I would like look at one thing before I go."

"All right." The NCIS coroner walked along to the passenger side of the bus.

"One thing?" Gibbs didn't want a suspect trampling over the crime scene.

"I'll show you." The M.E. walked to the house with his hands in the pockets of his coat. "It was something I noticed, but I'm not quite sure."

Gibbs spotted Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo, two of his people, working the street. He could tell from their expressions they weren't having much luck with the neighbors.

Where was McGee?

"Gibbs." One of the marines guarding the door nodded at the agent as he approached.

"Capezzi." Gibbs nodded. "I'm going to need to talk to you in a couple of minutes."

"No worries." The private nodded.

Sear walked into the crime scene, looking around again as he approached where the body had lain. He stood in the marked spot on the carpet. His head swiveled as if he was listening to someone talking.

"Do you mind?" Timothy McGee appeared, wearing his crime scene jacket and hat. He held a camera in his hands. "I'm not done yet."

"What do you have, McGee?" Gibbs admitted that he stood in one of the cleanest crime scenes he had experienced. No signs of struggle, no damage, no evidence.

"No signs of a struggle, or a break-in, Boss." McGee let the camera hang by its strap as he pulled out his PDA. "Captain Leonard Cressly detached to a special project for the Office of Strategic Operations. I have a call in to find out what he was working on, to see if it had any bearing. Tony and Ziva are looking for witnesses."

"Why is the carpet wet?" Gibbs indicated a dark spot where the head of the victim had lain according to the tape outline.

"I don't know, but I took a sample for Abby." McGee indicated a case placed outside the crime scene proper.

Sear walked to a fireplace of fake rock that dominated a wall in front of the couch. He bent down to look inside. He stepped back.

"You might want to take some pictures." He indicated the fireplace with a nod of his head.

McGee looked at his boss. Gibbs nodded. He walked over to the fireplace. He put the camera to his eye, but paused.

"What is that?" He leaned forward to get a better look.

"The murder weapon, maybe." The M. E. looked around again.

"Looks like a spray gun." McGee concentrated on it. "I don't see a trigger."

Gibbs took a closer look around the room. He spotted a little flash of light in the woodpile next to the fireplace. He walked over to the box and knelt. He used his pen to push a log out of the way. A black box had been left in the wood with the front pointing toward the fireplace.

"Take a picture of this, McGee." Gibbs stepped out of the way.

"It's a tripwire, Boss." McGee took several pictures of the device.

"Tag and bag it." Gibbs gestured for Sear to follow him from the scene. "See if you can get that thing out of the fireplace without it blowing up in your face, McGee."

"On it, Boss." McGee retrieved an evidence bag from his case and placed the tripwire in it as the other two men walked outside.

"Did you find a similar device in the earlier murder?" Gibbs watched his suspect carefully.

"I don't know if the Pee Dee found anything like it." Sear shrugged. "I didn't get a possible match for any poison in Arnold's body."

Gibbs thought the M.E. was hiding something, but he wasn't sure what it could be. It felt unconnected to the death, but still a secret.

"I want you to go in and give a statement to Agent DiNozzo." Gibbs pulled out his phone. "I want you to expedite what you do have to Ducky."

"No problem, Agent Gibbs." Sear shrugged in his coat.

"How did you know about the thing in the fireplace?" Gibbs pressed the button for his subordinate's phone number. He watched as DiNozzo answered his own phone down the street. "I need you to take a witness in."

Sear hesitated for the first time. He shrugged again.

"It seemed that Captain Cressly had been struck in the face and fell backwards. He had died where he lay as far as I could tell. I noticed the fireplace implements had been set aside as if he was getting ready to start a fire in the fireplace. A look inside was enough to show me there was something blocking the pipe."

Gibbs didn't buy that for a moment. It showed a level of deductive prowess that the medical examiner had not shown so far.

DiNozzo trudged up. The look on his face said he was glad not to have to knock on any more doors.

"Ride down to the Yard with Dr. Sear, DiNozzo." Gibbs nodded at Sear's car. "Call Baltimore Pee Dee and find out what they have on Arnold Krullil."

"On it, Boss." DiNozzo smiled. "So you work in Baltimore?"

"The M.E.'s Office." Sear led the way to his old car.

"Is Clint Staley still there?" DiNozzo got in the car. He had recently arrested his former captain. He knew Staley, another detective in the division, had been shot.

"He died." Sear got behind the wheel. The car cut off the rest of what he said.

Gibbs watched them drive away. There was something not right about Sear. He didn't know what it was, but it bothered him.

He looked around the neighborhood from his vantage point. No one here knew anything that could help him. He needed to move the investigation.

He pulled out his phone, considering his next moves. There was a chance the murderer would come back for his weapon. He needed to be ready for that.

He pressed the speed dial button on his phone. Ziva answered from the porch where she was talking with an older woman.

"Sit on the scene." Gibbs saw her nod. "The murderer might come back for his gear if he thinks we missed it."

"Understood." Ziva had been trained to kill by Mossad before working with NCIS. Anyone breaking in while she was on watch would have major problems.

Gibbs put his phone away. He needed to question Capezzi and Davis, then have a look around the first murder scene. Maybe the murderer had left his weapon there.

If they were lucky, maybe the killer had left his fingerprints on the weapon.

"Did Sear touch anything, Capezzi?" Gibbs paused by the door.

"No, sir." The marine shook his head. "I did have him check Cressly since he was a doctor, but the victim was already dead. He didn't touch the body at all."

"What led to finding the body?" Gibbs produced his notebook. He almost smiled when Capezzi and Davis pulled their own.

The marines stated being assigned to do a check by Captain Lerner's office, the presence of a mild smell like cold air when they arrived, breaking into the house and searching for Cressly, and finding the body. Capezzi added that he had taken pictures and handed them over to McGee when the NCIS team had arrived ahead of their leader. They had noted the wet floor, but had not searched the building for a weapon.

Gibbs thanked him before going in and talking to McGee again.

3

Gibbs drove to Baltimore with a practiced ignoring of speed limits and others on the road with him. He had talked to the detective in charge of the earlier death. The man had nothing to go on. Arnold Krulill had been a cypher to everyone who knew him. He had no one who would miss him, or want him dead, according to his peers.

His opinion of Sear was the man was spooky, and most of the cases he dealt with were murder. While not number one in the land, Baltimore still had work for M.E.'s office everyday, and Sear was not known for taking breaks from it.

Gibbs asked him to send what he could to the Yard. He would look through it later.

Gibbs parked his Charger in the lot behind an apartment building. He noted the sign out front said Ardmore Forest Condominiums when he passed it. He got out of the car and walked to the back door. It was secured. He walked around the front. Buttons with tenant names sat next to an intercom so they could talk to their guests.

No one was listed as the manager. He/she might not live on the property.

Gibbs decided not to press all of the buttons in hopes he got the one resident that would open the door for him. He didn't want to explain what he was doing there.

He pulled out a set of picks and forced the front door. He put the picks away. It wasn't as fast as Ziva, but it was fast enough.

He pushed the call button for the elevator. The building was only three stories tall. He got in when the doors opened. He pressed the third floor and waited. The elevator deposited him on the third floor after some jerky movements.

He examined the hall as he walked down to the victim's apartment. The carpet was fresh. The walls were unblemished. Four apartments indicated the four corners of the building with the elevator being at one end with the emergency stairs. He imagined 31 and 32 extending to either side of the shaft.

He paused at 33. A yellow do not cross tape was still in place. He listened at the door before opening it with his picks. He stepped under the tape and went inside.

His first impression was the crime scene people didn't know they were dealing with a crime scene at first. The unit had been carpeted and there was a patch where it might have been wet before the body had been found. He didn't see any fingerprinting residue, or the traces of a search through what looked like a work area. He didn't see a computer, or a laptop. Maybe the LEOs had grabbed it for evidence.

He checked the bedroom. Everything was in place, with a suit hanging by itself. Personal effects were laid on an end table next to a lamp. A small clock radio sat on the other side of the lamp. No sign of violence permuted the air.

What had made Sear decide on murder for the victim? There was nothing to indicate it.

Gibbs walked backed to the death scene. He stood about where the victim had when he died. He had fallen to the floor which had been clear of anything to stop his fall. What had he been doing when he had been killed?

A keypad for the apartment's air-conditioning and heat was right in front of the investigator. He would have been standing in front of it when he died.

A check around revealed nothing that could have been used as a tripwire. Maybe the pad itself. He needed to get an expert on this.

He flipped his phone open and pushed the button for McGee.

"Hello." The field agent seemed distracted.

"I need you at the first murder scene, McGee." Gibbs gave him the address. "Bring a tool kit."

"On it, Boss." Gibbs hung up before he could say anything else.

McGee liked to talk, but he liked to talk in technical jargon that Gibbs had no use for.

Gibbs pushed the button for DiNozzo. He imagined the agent goofing off at his desk, playing video games on his computer.

"Yes, Boss." DiNozzo sounded alert.

"What have you dug up on Cressly, DiNozzo?" They could go over the first victim's background when the files from the Pee Dee arrived.

"Liaison to Claremont Chemicals, working on refrigeration systems. Arnold Krullil was his contact man in the company. He had ten years in the Navy, working on special projects, but nothing top secret." DiNozzo paused. "The evidence box for Krullil just arrived."

DiNozzo talked to someone on his end. He said something he thought was hilarious.

"Krullil was an engineer. The LEOs couldn't find anybody who heard anything." DiNozzo paused. "Invisible killer?"

"Probably posing as a repairman." Gibbs frowned as he stared at the thermostat. He could hear a faint clicking sound. "Sear?"

"Five years as a M.E., went to medical school at Penn State, and Wake Forest. No major brushes with the law." DiNozzo had checked the doctor out while doing the other research. "No connection to the victims as far as I could find."

"Who else did Krullil and Cressly work with at Claremont?" Gibbs needed a place to start and that was the common link. He doubted the two deaths were random chance.

"I have a call in but the personnel office hasn't called me back." DiNozzo hated to admit that because the next move was to go down in person and talk to the personnel office. "Cressly reported to the OSO, but no one there was close to him."

"Where is Sear?" Gibbs looked out the window. How long would it take for McGee to get there from the Yard?

"He is in Autopsy, with Ducky." DiNozzo almost chuckled. "They were running Palmer ragged."

"Keep an eye on him." Gibbs cut the connection.

He didn't want Sear contaminating evidence if he was involved. The doctor was hiding something, but Gibbs's gut told him it was separate from the case they were working on. He just wasn't going to take any chances.

He had seen too many men and women kill to keep their secrets.

He only had one member of his team to touch base with. He doubted anything had happened in the few hours the investigation had been going.

Ziva would have called if she had killed someone trying to get into the house.

He pushed the button and waited for his agent to answer. She might be killing someone right then.

"Yes?" She sounded chipper.

"Anything?" Gibbs doubted it. She was too casual.

"No." She made a clucking noise. "No one has come to get the device."

"Stay on it until we have a new lead." Gibbs cut the connection.

Either the murderer came for the device they had found, or he wouldn't. He might be watching the house and waiting for Ziva to clear out if he knew she was there.

He might wait for a few days in hopes that things had calmed down enough to retrieve the thing.

It suggested options if nothing panned out.

They could set a trap and wait to see who came back to take their decoy.

It wouldn't be the first time they had set such a trap for a perp.

Gibbs paced the room again, looking for anything else that seemed out of place. It bothered him that he couldn't find a trigger similar to the one they had found in Cressly's house. The killer could have taken it between the death and when the body was found.

He might go back for his weapon if he thought they hadn't found it yet.

His phone rang. He checked the caller id. McGee was calling.

"Go, McGee." He frowned as he waited for an explanation.

"I'm downstairs." McGee sounded wary.

"Number 33, McGee." Gibbs went to the pad by the door. He pushed the unlock button on the pad. The buzzing told him the lobby door had unlocked.

"On my way." McGee shut off his phone.

Gibbs opened the door and looked out in the empty hall. The elevator huffed as the cab climbed to the third floor. McGee stepped out in the hall, watching the corridor as he walked down to the opened apartment.

"I need you to take a look at this thermostat, McGee." He pointed at the controls. "It's about the right place for a sprayer to go off in Krullil's face."

McGee put down his tool kit. He pulled on latex gloves. He looked at the white box from both sides. He touched the control. The box fell off the wall. It hung from wires leading from the wall.

"This can't be good." He pulled a flashlight and shone it down in the cavity. A wide space greeted him.

"Pictures." Gibbs pulled a camera from the tool bag. He checked for a card before taking pictures of the cavity.

Tim pulled out a q-tip and a sample bag. He rubbed it inside the cavity and on the wall. Maybe the weapon left some kind of chemical signature they could type. He put the swab in the bag and sealed it.

McGee got a screwdriver and took the plastic control pad apart. He shook his head at what he found.

"It looks like the card was damaged." He pushed it back over the hole. "The sprayer was in the wall. Krullil stepped in front of the thermostat. Boom in the face."

Gibbs frowned as he looked at the hole. The killer had come back after the murder and taken the device before the police could find it.

"Disconnect the box, McGee." He wanted it examined. "Let's see if Abby can get us something."

4

Gibbs walked into Autopsy. Ducky was regaling Jimmy Palmer and Cole Sear with a story about some mercenaries with a psychotic koala he had run into while in the service. The coroner paused when he saw the lead investigator striding through the sliding doors.

"What do you got, Duck?" Gibbs had cases to solve in the here and now. Strolls down memory lane could wait until the work was done.

"We don't know exactly, Jethro." Ducky waved to one of the examination tables. Files had been spread on its surface. "If you will, Dr. Sear."

"Yes, sir." Sear went to the table, scanning the contents of the files to organize his thoughts. He looked like a shadow in the cold white light of the morgue. "Arnold Krullil, 45, found dead in his apartment by the landlord. No obvious signs of death, no wounds. Faint discoloration of the face was noted by the landlord in his statement to the police. It was still present when examined by myself at the morgue."

"Same as Cressly?" Gibbs frowned. It was a connection that linked the deaths beyond their workplace.

"Almost exactly." Sear nodded. "Captain Cressly's was just more recent."

"We think it was caused by the murder weapon." Ducky cut in. "Rather ingenious if we're correct."

"Mr. Krullil had some small bruising which may have been caused by falling to the floor of his apartment. There were no other visible signs of damage. Blood tests revealed the absence of poisons. Autopsy showed that he had suffocated somehow without defending himself. Tissues in his face had traces of crystallization. His face had been frozen sometime around the time of death, but only his face. If he had been stored in a freezer, I would have found the same damage everywhere." Sear offered the results and summary of his autopsy for Gibbs to read for himself.

"Now, our good captain suffered a heart attack." Ducky gestured to the body on the table under the operating lights. "He died quite suddenly. Otherwise, his death is almost an exact match for Krullil's. We think the goal was to cause Cressly to suffocate just as the earlier murder, but instead it triggered the attack when he panicked."

"Captain Cressly was claustrophobic according to his file." Palmer broke in. He stepped back when he realized he had broken in on the presentation.

"Quite right, Mr. Palmer." Ducky smiled. "That's why we think he panicked. Something shut off his breathing and possibly sight, his pressure goes up. His heart beats itself to death."

"What did that?" Gibbs looked at the puzzled faces.

"We assume ice of some kind, Agent Gibbs." Sear closed his files. "It's the only thing that makes sense. We just haven't figured out how it was applied."

"Spray gun." Gibbs started for the door. He boarded the elevator before they could ask him what he meant.

Gibbs entered the lab where Abby Sciuto went over evidence for the Major Case squads that operated out of the Naval Yard. Other squads around the world sent in what they collected if it was important enough for Abby to look at it.

"Gibbs!" Abby broke into a huge smile. "I don't have much I can tell you."

"What do you have?" Gibbs went to the table where the evidence from the two murder scenes were laid out.

"The black box is a laser." Abby indicated the box at the end with a pale hand. "It works like any security device anywhere to prevent burglaries, except instead of triggering an alarm, it works a remote.

"The swab Tim collected contained water and some kind of chemical. Only a trace was left so I assume the chemical was mixed in with the water to cause a reaction, and that used it up. Similar traces were left on this."

Abby picked up the round tube McGee had salvaged from the fireplace in Cressly's house. She opened it up to reveal two reservoirs. A plunger was at the end of the tube.

"The thermostat?" Gibbs pointed at the beige control pad.

"Frozen." Abby put the spray gun down, and pulled the cover off the box. "All the chips were hit with the spray when it activated. Discoloration on the back indicates it was right in front of the weapon when it fired."

She showed him a darker shade of beige on the device's back.

"Who makes the chemical?" Gibbs hoped that was a lead he could use to track down the murderer. Something that instantly froze water on contact couldn't be that common.

"No one as far as I know." Abby frowned. "It's totally new."

"What does Claremont Chemical do?" Both victims worked with the company. Maybe that was the link.

"Their website says they offer solutions to all of your refrigeration needs." Abby smiled.

"Really?" Gibbs frowned. "Thanks, Abbs."

Gibbs headed for the door, pulling out his phone. He needed to see what Claremont had.

"DiNozzo." Tony was probably waiting at his desk for such a call.

"I need you to go to Claremont Chemical and see what you can find out." Gibbs paused to wait for the elevator. "We need a link and a motive."

"On it, Boss." DiNozzo cut the line.

Gibbs decided to check in with Ziva. If the murderer retrieved the weapon from the first scene, he might try from the second.

He didn't want her to have a frozen face to match the two dead men in the morgue.

"Yes?" Ziva sounded bored.

"The murderer went back to the first scene." Gibbs hoped that put her on her guard. "Keep an eye out."

"Understood." Ziva hung up.

Gibbs boarded the elevator. It was time for him to speak to his resident technical genius.

Gibbs entered the bullpen. McGee was at his desk, typing away. He frowned as he went over whatever he had dredged up.

"Anything, McGee?" Gibbs paused at his subordinate's desk. He read the screen over the younger man's shoulder.

"Nothing on the vics' credit cards, no telephone calls out, but several to their phones." McGee highlighted the numbers. "Reverse directory says a Janet Hayes, and Claremont Chemical headquarters."

"Grab your gear." Gibbs noted the address for Hayes. "Let's talk to her. Maybe she knows something we need."

McGee shut down his computer. He grabbed his bag as his boss was already heading for the exit. He slung the bag over his shoulder as they stepped in the elevator.

McGee wanted to ask questions but his chief rarely answered questions. He had gotten used to the style, but sometimes he wanted to have his curiosity answered about the direction they were going in.

"What do you think is behind this?" McGee kicked himself mentally. He should have kept his silence.

"Money." Gibbs led the way to his charger. "It's the only motive that makes sense at the moment."

"How?" McGee paused as he considered.

"If I knew that, we would be arresting our murderer, instead of visiting someone who knew the victims and called both of them." Gibbs got behind the wheel after stowing his bag in the trunk. McGee stowed his and got in the passenger seat.

Gibbs roared across town. Speed limits were his guide, not a law as far as he was concerned. He pulled to the curb in front of a house in the middle of a row of houses.

The agents got out of the car and headed for the door. Gibbs knocked on the door. He listened to the house. It was too quiet.

"Go around back, McGee." Gibbs pulled his service pistol. "Something's not right."

They were looking for a witness, but they might have stumbled on the next victim.

Gibbs waited until he was sure the younger man was in position. He knocked on the door one more time, then he kicked the door in. He checked the rooms one by one until he found Janet Hayes. She lay in front of her open refrigerator.

McGee stood outside the back door. He had his gun drawn. He shook his head. No one had left by him.

Gibbs inspected the refrigerator. He saw an open space in the middle of it about the same height as the dead woman. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what had happened.

The killer had rigged the appliance. When Hayes opened the door, the booby trap went off in her face. The killer came back and took the evidence.

McGee was on the phone. Ducky had to be called to pick up the body. The cause of death would probably be the same as the other two victims.

Gibbs restrained himself from kicking the refrigerator in frustration. He put the gun away. He needed to get his kit and start photographing the scene.

He should have known the murderer would cut off any lead back to him through associates of Cressly and Krullil. Who else was a target?

Gibbs opened the back door. McGee put his phone away.

"Ducky is on his way." The younger agent frowned at the body. "He should be here in a few minutes."

"Start canvassing the neighborhood." Gibbs gestured at the surrounding houses. "We want to know about any strangers, boyfriends, whatever you can dig up."

"On it, Boss." McGee retreated from the back door.

Gibbs went back to his car and opened the trunk. He grabbed his bag and went back inside. He placed his bag down and pulled out a camera. He worked his way through the house, taking pictures as he went.

He worked his way around the kitchen with the camera. He took several pictures of the water around the victim's head.

He let the camera hang from his neck by its strap. He pulled a sample jar from his bag. He dipped some of the water up and sealed the top. Maybe Abby could get a better read with a bigger sample. He put the sample jar in a bag and sealed it.

He did sketches of the scene to go with the photos. It would go in with his notes to help with the report he was going to have to write when he got back to the Yard.

"Jethro?" Ducky's voice cut through his thoughts sooner than he expected.

"Back here, Duck." Gibbs put the sketches in a pad for them. "In the kitchen."

Ducky, Palmer, and Cole Sear pulled a gurney into the room. They paused as they assessed the body.

"Looks the same as Krullil and Cressly." Ducky knelt down and touched her face with a gloved hand. "Same discoloration."

"Time of death?" Gibbs stepped back to give them room.

Mallard opened his kit and stuck a thermometer into the body. He made some calculations as the instrument worked. He examined the corpse's arms and legs.

"I am going to say about sixteen hours." Ducky stood. "I'll know better after we get her home."

Palmer and Ducky opened a bag. They lifted the victim up and placed her in the rubber sack. They zipped it up and started rolling her away.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Dr. Sear." Gibbs turned his full attention on the man from Baltimore.

"I'm still hoping that the case will be closed." Dr. Sear shrugged in his coat. "Did you find her phone?"

"No." Gibbs pulled out his own phone. He dialed the number from the record search. An old fashioned bell sounded. He followed it through the house before finding the source stuffed under a mattress in the bedroom. He quit calling when he had it in his hand.

He placed it in an evidence bag. McGee could take it apart after they were done with the crime scene.

The medical team had cleared out of the house.

Gibbs placed the phone in his kit and sprayed powder around the refrigerator. Maybe his murderer had been careless enough to leave fingerprints. He found several and took them on card backings. He would have to run them against the victim to determine if they were hers.

He thought they were the victims from the look of them.

5

Tony DiNozzo walked across the lobby, checking out the professional women around him for the most part. He stopped at the front counter barring visitors from walking further into Claremont Chemical. He smiled at the receptionist, and the surly looking security guard.

Neither one smiled back at him.

"Can I help you?" The receptionist, almost forty with a few early gray hairs, round glasses, and a cotton shirt, looked down at her notebook.

"Very Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo." He held up his credentials for her to read the card and look at the badge. "I'm here to see a John Cramer."

"Mr. Cramer said he didn't want any visitors." She gave him the eye.

"Really?" DiNozzo smiled at her. "Does he want to be arrested? How about you? Let's try this again. I'm here to see Mr. Cramer about some unexplained deaths. We can talk in his office, or I can have a battalion of marines come down here and take all of you down to the Naval Yard to be cleared of any wrongdoing which might take..." He glanced at his watch. "A few days."

"Call him." The security guard had a square face and not enough hair. "The bigwigs will have a heart attack if the business is disrupted."

"We wouldn't want that." DiNozzo turned on his best grin.

She gave him a pursed look that could kill a mountain lion, but she picked up the phone. She dialed an office upstairs and waited.

"Anne?" She glared at DiNozzo. "There's a fed here to see Mr. Cramer."

She hung up the phone.

"He's expecting you." She pointed toward the row of elevators. "Fourth floor, 256-A.

"Thanks." DiNozzo sauntered over to the elevator. He wondered if they were going to do the dodging executive on him. Would Gibbs allow him to arrest a building to find one man?

Gibbs would arrest the city if he thought he had the reason.

DiNozzo took the elevator up to the fourth floor. The last thing he wanted to do was play hide and seek with a guy who didn't want to talk to him.

He sighed as he watched the numbers over the elevator door. At least he knew what the guy looked like thanks to Virginia's DMV.

He paused after stepping out on the floor. He looked one way, then the other. He checked the stairs. At least no one was running for the ground floor as far as he could tell.

He walked down to the hall, reading the numbers on the doors as he went. He paused when he reached the one he had been directed to by the people downstairs.

He opened the door and peered inside. A commanding lady in an armor of cotton and wool stared at him with displeasure. He put on his best smile.

"I'm here to see Mr. Cramer." He looked around the office. "Is he in?"

"No, he isn't." She glared at his smiling face.

"Then I'll wait in his office until he comes back." DiNozzo pushed the inner door open. He smiled at the executive behind his desk. "Look, he is here after all."

"What can I do for you?" Cramer looked up at his visitor. He waved his secretary away with one hand.

"What can you tell me about Arnold Krullil's work here?" DiNozzo settled into a visitor's chair, pulling out his notebook and pen.

"He is a researcher working on a new refrigerant for submarines for the Navy." Cramer sat back in his chair. "Was a researcher."

"For submarines?" The agent raised his eyebrows.

"We were hoping to expand into other vehicles, but the submarines were for cooling nuclear power plants. Even underwater, they have to be kept a certain temperature. Our new coolant was supposed to allow the plant itself to be shrunken. The resultant space would be for crew and supplies." Cramer indicated the percentage of gain with his hands.

"Sounds great." DiNozzo decided to ask McGee to explain the feasibility of the thing later.

"Only it wasn't working. The project is overbudget and the trial runs have come up negative." Cramer frowned. "We were going to shut the thing down."

"Did Captain Cressly know?" Tony wondered if the captain had a personal stake in the project continuing, or not.

"I assume so." The executive looked around his desk. He had several sets of papers in front of him. "The refrigerant was volatile and considered too dangerous to use. Too much chance of it blowing up. We couldn't solve the problem."

"How dangerous was it?" Espionage for something that could be terrorist material was a good reason for murder in his book.

"A pint could blow up as much as five sticks of dynamite." Cramer proffered a file. "The amount we were going to use would have been about three missiles worth."

"Ouch." DiNozzo flipped through the file, but the numbers didn't mean that much to him. He had majored in Physical Education in college. "Can I get a copy of this?"

"Sure." Cramer turned to his computer. "I can print the whole thing for you."

"Can you send it in an e-mail?" McGee would be able to go over the information at his leisure at his desk. DiNozzo gave Cramer the Probie's e-mail address. "What about the other members of the team? Did they know the project was closing?"

"Janet Hayes and John Berryman were the other researchers." Cramer looked among the papers again. He couldn't find what he was looking for there. "Hold on."

He picked up the phone and called the personnel department. He had them fax the personal information of Hayes and Berryman to his office. The machine buzzed a few minutes later and spit out the requested pages. He handed them over.

"Thanks." DiNozzo scanned the addresses listed. He would call the DMV to make sure the addresses were current with their licences. "What did you think of Krullil?"

"He was smart, prickly, and pretty much upfront in everyway." Cramer shrugged. "He couldn't tell a lie to save his life."

"Good to work with?" DiNozzo doubted the answer would be a yes.

"Sometimes." Cramer paused to consider his answer. "Arn liked research. He liked figuring things out. He liked making things work. But he had a low frustration threshold. Part of my job as his boss was making sure that he didn't give up when the going got tough."

"What about Captain Cressly?" The liaison officer had some pull as far as contracts. He could use that as some kind of leverage if he wanted.

"Captain Cressly seemed to be a simple pencil pusher. I saw him at meetings, but he rarely spoke, never seemed to have anything to add." Cramer shrugged again. "I think I only got three e-mails from him in the last five months the project was live."

"Thanks for your time." DiNozzo stood. He had already decided to have McGee hack the man's records. "I'll let you know what we find."

"I thought Arn had an accident, some kind of seizure." Cramer stood. "I don't understand what that has to do with the work he was doing."

"He was murdered." DiNozzo turned serious for a second. "Don't worry. We'll get the murderer."

"How?" Cramer looked shocked.

"He was suffocated." The agent thought that was close enough to what had happened. "I'll let you know what we find."

He walked out of the office, waving at the battle axe on duty. She glared at him in return.

DiNozzo pulled out his phone. Maybe he had a lead. Maybe not. He should tell Gibbs and see how he could fit it in the puzzle they had.

"Gibbs." The senior agent sounded more frustrated than was safe. "Talk."

"Krullil had two coworkers. Janet Hayes and John Berryman. Their project wasn't safe according to the big wheel and was being shut down. They were working on some kind of super coolant." DiNozzo could hear the wheels of his chief's brain spinning.

"Hayes is dead." DiNozzo looked around. No one was looking at him as far as he could tell. "Find Berryman."

The phone line died before DiNozzo could ask any other questions.

DiNozzo headed down and out of the building. He walked to the lot where he had parked his Charger. He had Berryman's address. That was where he could start.

He called the Yard and had the switchboard put out an APB for Berryman's car. The more people looking for the guy, the faster he would be found.

He might be their murderer.

Tony drove cross town slower than his boss. He parked in front of a set of row houses running from one end of the block to the other. He got out of the car and approached the door. He pressed the doorbell. He waited for a minute before pressing it again. The house remained silent.

He broke out the picks. What the suspect didn't know about him breaking in wouldn't hurt him. He got in and started looking around. The place needed a maid to pay a visit, but he didn't see any signs of a struggle. He checked the bedrooms upstairs. One looked typically messy bachelor, the other was an office. Gaps in the closet suggested Berryman had fled.

It wasn't conclusive but it looked like Berryman had killed everyone involved with the research to keep it to himself. Why would he do that when he would be sued for any money he tried to gain from it?

DiNozzo thought he was missing something, but he wasn't quite sure what it was.

He decided he needed a warrant for the office computer. McGee and Abby could take it apart and find out what was on it back at the lab.

DiNozzo went back to his car. He couldn't ask for a warrant and be in the house when it arrived. He called JAG, and asked one of their lawyers to process it for him. One of their personnel would deliver it as soon as it was done.

He leaned against his car and played Tetris on his phone while he waited. It was all he could do if Berryman was the murderer and they didn't want their evidence thrown out of court when they busted him.

And they were going to bust him.

A staff car arrived after about an hour of game overs. Lt. Bud Roberts got out of the car. He frowned when he saw DiNozzo in his suit.

"You asked for a warrant for this address?" Roberts was shorter, grayer, and less puppyish than DiNozzo remembered from earlier dealings.

"Yep." Tony smiled. "A suspect has gone missing and I hope to find some indication where he might have gone on any computer he might have on the premises."

"Just the computer, DiNozzo." Roberts handed over the papers. "Got it?"

"Got it." Tony went in to seize his evidence.

6

Gibbs looked over McGee's and Abby's shoulders. He didn't quite understand what he was looking at on the big screen in Abby's lab. He did understand the sounds of disappointment they were emitting.

"What's the problem?" He might as well hear if he had a case against Berryman now than wait until he had him in interrogation.

"Berryman had all of his financials in his computer. He has email alerts for anything from credit card use to automatic bill payments." McGee pointed out the relevant numbers. "Except for the automatics, he hasn't spent anything on his credit cards, or bank account in three days."

"If he's on the run, he's paying cash everywhere he goes." Abby gave him a moue.

"If he's on the run." Gibbs pulled out his phone. "Sort through the rest of it, and start background checks on any contacts he might have had on that thing. We need to know who he knew."

He rushed from the lab. He called DiNozzo and had him head down to the car lot. They had to look at Berryman's house again.

Gibbs drove, focused on the road. He doubted they would find Berryman. Doubted they would find him alive anyway.

They rolled to the curb in front of Berryman's house. Gibbs frowned at the older car already there. He got out, pulling his pistol.

"Isn't that Sear's car?" DiNozzo looked at both ends of the street. "What's he doing here?"

Gibbs pointed to the back of the house. He went to the front. He checked the door. It pushed open to the touch. He went inside. He heard Sear talking at the back of the house, but he didn't hear any response.

Who was he talking to?

Gibbs silently approached the kitchen door. He spotted Sear sitting at the kitchen table, hunched in his coat. A fog escaped his mouth while he was talking. No one else was there as far as he could tell.

"Why have a meeting at all?" Sear looked across the table. "You only had the delivery system. Is that what he wanted?"

Sear stood and went to a kitchen cabinet. He opened it. He frowned.

"Nothing's here." He pulled a chair over and used that to look on the top shelf. He shook his head. "It looks like he took it."

"Took what?" Gibbs stepped in the room. He held his pistol by his side. He might have to shoot the medical examiner. "What are you doing here?"

"I decided to look around." Sear held up both hands while he stood on the chair.

"No one else around, Boss." DiNozzo stood to one side so he could shoot the medical examiner without shooting Gibbs, or being shot if Gibbs decided to shoot.

"I'm alone." Sear glanced at the junior agent. The kitchen was colder than the rest of the house for some reason. They could see the fog on his breath when he talked.

"What was taken?" Gibbs suddenly had a feeling that Sear knew more than what he had told them. His gut was sending them that message.

"John Berryman designed the spray gun as a model for the big injectors they planned to use for the project he was working on. He kept it here, in a box." Sear pointed to the shelf. "His killer took it with him when they met."

"How do you know that?" DiNozzo looked around the kitchen. He could almost see a last breakfast between two people.

"Berryman had argued with the killer. He didn't want to sell the design because it tended to explode during the test runs. They couldn't fix the problem but thought it had to do with the volume of chemical. The more of it in one place, the more likely it was going to explode." Sear gestured at the chair. "Can I get off the chair now?"

"If Berryman was killed, where is the body, and who killed him?" Gibbs shook his head when the medical examiner tried to step down.

"I don't know who killed him." Sear shrugged. "The body should be here in the house somewhere."

"I didn't see anything earlier." DiNozzo looked over at Gibbs.

"You think, DiNozzo." Gibbs told him with a glare.

"Can I get down now?" Sear looked around. His breath no longer floated in the air as the kitchen warmed up.

"All right." Gibbs put the pistol away. "I'm going to need an explanation better than you were just looking around."

"That was all I was doing." Sear put the chair back. "I realize that Berryman is considered a fugitive, or a missing witness, but I am sure he is dead."

"How sure?" Gibbs asked.

"Almost certain." Sear frowned. "It's the only way I can explain the blood."

He pointed at an almost invisible trail of droplets on the floor.

"DiNozzo?" Gibbs looked at his junior.

"Didn't see that when I was here earlier." DiNozzo stepped back from the glare he was receiving.

Gibbs followed the droplets along the floor. He paused when he reached a closet. He opened the door. Two coats hung on the rail, but he didn't see a body in the space.

Sear reached in and pushed on the back of the closet. The back shifted out of the way. It stopped when it hit something behind it.

"Get your gear, DiNozzo."Gibbs took the coats out of the closet and placed them on a chair. "It looks like we found our missing man."

"On it, Boss." DiNozzo pulled his phone and called Ducky while he walked outside. They were going to have to have an autopsy of their only suspect.

"How did you know?" Gibbs glared at the medical examiner.

"I see dead people." Sear hunched in his coat and went to look out the window.

Gibbs paused. He didn't know what to make of the obvious. Of course he saw dead people. He was a medical examiner. And Baltimore had more than a few people who needed his services.

What was he missing?

He put the thoughts on a backburner. He had a crime scene to process and he had to come up with new leads to who had killed the project members. He needed a murderer.

When he was done with that, he would have a real talk with Sear.

"Ducky is on the way." DiNozzo returned with their bags. He pulled out a camera and started taking pictures.

"I think we can rule out natural causes." Gibbs frowned at the scene. "Step outside, Sear. We need to keep the contamination down."

"I understand." Sear walked out of the house and stood in the yard.

"What's going on with that guy?" DiNozzo photographed the blood trail back to the kitchen.

"That's a good question, DiNozzo. Why don't you find me an answer?" Gibbs pulled out his notebook and started making notes.

The question bothered Gibbs too, but he felt that Sear didn't kill anyone. His gut told him that.

The way he was talking to himself at the table spoke of some kind of mental imbalance. People talked to themselves when sorting things out. It didn't mean anything. The fact that he had known about the empty space on the shelf didn't say much for his innocence.

Gibbs refused to believe that Sear sat down at Berryman's table and talked to Berryman's ghost.

Ducky arrived with Jimmy Palmer after Gibbs and DiNozzo had gone over the house. They paused to talk to Sear as he stood out on the lawn.

Gibbs went to the door. "In here, Ducky."

He pointed the coroner and his assistant to the death scene. The doctor clucked when he saw the small space.

"Hopefully, he's out of rigor by now." Ducky took a flashlight out of his pocket. He shone it inside the closet. "Otherwise, we'll have to break his legs to get him out of there."

Ducky and Palmer went to work, pulling on the legs until the whole body had been pulled out in the open. The cause of death was obvious because his throat had been cut.

"How long?" Gibbs walked around the body as DiNozzo took pictures.

"I doubt body temperature will be a great help in this case." Mallard inspected a dead hand. "As much as two days."

"Maybe three?" Gibbs glanced outside at Sear.

"I'll know better when I get him back, but maybe." Ducky waved Palmer forward with the gurney.

"DiNozzo, finish up here." Gibbs made his decisions with his gut leading the way. "Canvas the neighborhood when you're done."

He walked outside. Sear waited for him on the grass, hands in his coat.

"You're driving." Gibbs indicated the old car. "It's time we had a talk."

Gibbs pulled his phone. He called the office and had McGee start running the bank records of anyone connected to Claremont. It was illegal and wouldn't hold up in court, but it was all he had.

Someone there knew why four people had been killed for an invention that didn't work.

7

Gibbs led the way down to his basement. A half-completed boat rested on a cradle in the center of the space. He perched on a stool and crossed his arms.

"This is nice." Sear ran his hand down the sanded keel. He looked around the room. "How will you get it out?"

"I'll knock down a wall." Gibbs gestured to another stool. "Want to tell me what's really going on?"

"You know as much as I do." Sear placed his hands in his coat. "Probably more at this point."

"I don't think so." Gibbs studied his guest. He noted the plume of fog from the man's mouth. He had seen the same thing at Berryman's when the doctor was talking to himself. A chill permeated the air. "You seem to have an inside track. What was the real reason you went to talk to Captain Cressly?"

"Cressly was the only one I knew who could have used the killing method we saw." Sear touched a carved flower on a discard pile. "Coffin?"

"But you were wrong." Gibbs didn't like the way Sear seemed to be listening to something that wasn't there.

"Obviously." Sear picked up the other pieces of wood, sifting through them. "It must have been nice."

"It was for a friend." Gibbs waited for a following question. Most people would ask about the friend.

"He was a lot like you." Sear placed the wood back into a pile. He looked around the basement.

"Some." Gibbs thought about Mike Franks. They were almost of the same cloth after decades of friendship. "What do you think happened to Berryman?"

"He met his killer for breakfast, and the killer cut his throat." Sear made a slice across his own neck with a finger. "He stopped the bleeding with a wash cloth before Berryman could bleed out on the floor. Ducky and Jimmy will be able to prove that in court as soon as they are done with the body."

"Let's say you're correct." Gibbs understood the implications immediately. "Do you have any way to prove it?"

"No." Sear shrugged in his coat. He glanced to one side. "The only thing you have is the belief that the weapon won't be found in the chimney. I'm surprised he hasn't tried to retrieve it yet. It's his spare weapon."

"How do you know that?" Gibbs wasn't used to someone paying more attention to a blank spot in the room than himself.

"It stands to reason." Sear's breath faded. "Berryman only had two of the models. You have the one, where's the other?"

Gibbs stood. He glared at the enigma in front of him as if willing more answers from the younger man. Sear averted his gaze, staring at the floor.

"Stay here." Gibbs started for the stairs. "I'm going to see if you're right."

Gibbs had been a marine before he had hired on as an NCIS, then NIS. He had killed more than a few people in the line of duty. And some he had killed because it was personal. Cutting someone's throat and covering the wound before it bled everywhere from the front was pretty impressive in his book. Most people didn't have the reflexes.

He pulled out his phone and called the office. McGee should have some background checks done on Claremont's employees. It was time to see if they could narrow the field.

"McGee." The agent sounded tired.

"How many of Claremont's employees were servicemen, McGee?" That seemed the place to start. Someone inside had to know about the project. They had to know the people involved. They had to have some knowledge of killing.

"Twenty, most work security." The typing was clearly audible over the phone connection.

What was the connection? Gibbs thought for a second. His gut was whispering to him like it did when it knew which way to go, but he didn't.

"Was Berryman in the Service?" Berryman was the first one killed. He knew the killer. How did he know the killer? From work, or before being hired by Claremont?

"His file says Army." McGee paused. "He was in their research division before mustering out."

"Anyone from Claremont serve with him?" This was the crux of his hunch. He could feel it.

"Thomas Garrity." McGee typed some more. "He's working security."

"Call DiNozzo. Pick him up. Send Ziva a picture of this guy and tell her to watch out for him until we pick him up." Gibbs hung up the phone.

Gibbs went back to his basement. He paused when he heard Sear talking with someone. He looked around the corner. The doctor appeared to be talking to himself.

He seemed to be talking to himself about rules.

"Let's go." Gibbs waved at him from the top of the stairs. "We have a lead."

"Where are we going?" Sear headed for the stairs. He looked around the basement one more time before climbing the steps.

"We're going to test your theory." Gibbs indicated the door. "If we're right, we might be able to trap the killer."

"Where are we going?" Sear walked outside, hands in his coat.

"Berryman served with a man named Garrity. Garrity works for Claremont as a security guard." Gibbs walked to Sear's car. "We're going to pick him up and ask him some questions."

"What if he isn't the right man?" Sear got behind the wheel.

"Then we'll think of something else." Gibbs pulled out his phone. "Right now, it's our best lead."

He got the address on Garrity's license from the DMV. He gave it to Sear. While DiNozzo was at Claremont, they were going to try to pick the guard up at his home.

Sear drove competently but much slower than Gibbs wanted. He seemed to be babying the car.

"This is the address you gave me." Sear pointed to a building that could have been a warehouse once, but looked deserted and worn down.

"Stay here out of the way." Gibbs got out of the car. He pulled his pistol and walked over the beaten building.

The place might have been a tobacco warehouse once, but the doors had a padlock and chain holding them closed. The metal looked new to him.

The bottom floors were covered with plywood. Keep Out had been printed in paint on the wood.

Gibbs searched the exterior. The back doors and the bay doors for trucks had been locked down against intruders. The top of the roller doors looked fresh greased as far as he could tell.

He climbed on a sill and kicked at one of the plywood pieces until it fell down inside the warehouse. He dropped down inside after it. He didn't see any sign of Garrity on the floor.

He noted the place looked clean. That was something you didn't see in a closed industrial building. He headed for the other side of the bare room. There were stairs heading to a catwalk that went around the walls at the second floor level.

Maybe Garrity was squatting on the property.

Gibbs didn't think he was present. The place felt too empty. He walked around the catwalk. Small rooms had been placed along it to once act as offices. One of them had been set up as a bedroom. A small do it yourself kitchen had been set up in another one.

Clothes and uniforms had been hung on a bar running across the bedroom.

His phone buzzed. He pulled it and flipped it open.

"Gibbs."

"Garrity didn't come to work today." DiNozzo had on his serious face. "No call."

"He's not at the home address on his license." Gibbs looked around one more time. "He might be trying to get the weapon we confiscated and get out of town."

Gibbs considered. How did he want to play this?

"Get McGee. Set up to watch Cressly's house." Gibbs headed downstairs. "We'll see if we can catch him trying to break in."

DiNozzo cut the line.

Gibbs climbed through the window he had used to get in. He pulled the sign back into place. They might miss Garrity. He didn't want to make it easy to know someone had broken in and looked around his quarters.

Gibbs called the local Pee Dee and asked for a car to sit on the place. He wanted to know as soon as Garrity came home.

If Garrity was the killer, what did he plan to do with the chemical? The small amounts that he had used had been a perfect killing agent. If the stuff did explode because they couldn't fix the combustion point, what would a terrorist organization pay to get it for use?

Was there some other motive operating they didn't know yet?

A tanker of that stuff parked anywhere could cause a crater.

Would he really go back for the second weapon? How close did he think they were? What would he do when he realized NCIS was looking for him?

Gibbs watched the road silently. Ziva would call if there was a problem. If Garrity tried to break in before the rest of the team got there, he might wind up dead before they could ask him where the chemical refrigerant was.

8

Ziva David waited. This wasn't the first time. It wouldn't be the last.

As an assassin, she had waited for the target to move into the target zone. As an NCIS agent, she was doing the same thing except she was not supposed to kill the target unless she had to.

She checked the perimeter once more. She endeavored to give the impression the house was still empty. If the suspect thought someone was living inside the house, he wouldn't step into the trap.

McGee and Tony had moved in the house opposite. Tim had called to let her know. They couldn't risk dropping a radio set to her in case Garrity was already making his move.

It depended on how much he knew, how much he had guessed, and how paranoid he was about being discovered.

If he was watching the house, he might have already seen the loose patrol pattern and the way the neighbors acted. He might be waiting for night to fall before he entered.

Garrity had planted the weapon without being discovered. He already knew how to get into and out of the house without a problem.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it and saw that it was DiNozzo. What did he want?

"Yes?" Ziva kept her voice down as she settled in Cressly's bedroom. The rest of the house seemed to be built around the fireplace, and that was where their suspect would go to retrieve his murder weapon.

"McHacker hacked Garrity's phone." DiNozzo had flipped to his serious persona. "He's in the neighborhood somewhere. We don't have a clear line of sight."

"Understood." Ziva hung up on him. She pulled her weapon and replaced the phone in her pocket. She made sure that she couldn't be seen from the curtained windows as she waited.

Tony and McGee were good shots, but she would feel a lot better if Gibbs was on the scene.

A faint clicking sounded to her ears. It was coming from the kitchen. She pointed her pistol at the door to the bedroom and waited. If he searched the house, she would take him when he opened the bedroom door. If he went directly to the fireplace, she would come up behind him and take him in the living room.

Either way, he was going down.

Light appeared through the crack at the bottom of the door. She frowned. He didn't seem concerned that someone might be waiting for him to return.

Ziva crept to the closed door. She listened. Footsteps creaked through the house. This might be it.

She slowly pulled the door open. Their suspect had headed right for the living room. She walked behind him, trying to avoid the creaking boards in the floor. Her suspect was bent down in front of the fireplace.

"NCIS. Hands where I can see them, please." She hoped he came along quietly. Gibbs would be angrier if she had to shoot him in the back.

The man stood, raising both hands at waist level. He wore a large coat and that obscured his build. The back of his head had a serviceman haircut.

"Please put your hands on the fireplace." Ziva pulled a set of cuffs from their holder on her belt.

He started to lean forward, but then started turning. Ziva fired automatically at the falling shape as it dropped below cover provided by the couch and coffee table. She felt she had hit both times in the center of the target.

A white cloud erupted from where the intruder had fallen. She backed up. Frost covered the back of the furniture as it advanced.

Ziva fired into the cloud. She couldn't see Garrity, but she could keep him pinned down until Tony and McGee arrived to help out.

Garrity fired back from the cover of the freezing cloud. He had brought a regular pistol of his own. The refrigerant was great for a surprise attack, but it wasn't deadly unless sprayed in the face.

His bullets shattered a lamp. The glass sprayed the walls.

"Give up, Garrity." Ziva held her fire. The cloud was obscuring a certain hit. "It's over."

The front door opened quietly. Ziva turned to shoot, using a plant as cover. She stopped herself when she saw it was DiNozzo. He stopped at the edge of the living room, using the wall as cover.

"The house is surrounded, Garrity." DiNozzo gestured for Ziva to wait. "There's no way to go from here. If you surrender, things will go easier for you."

Two bullets passed through the wood next to his head. He stepped back from the splinters, rubbing his face.

Ziva fired her pistol into the cloud until it clicked back. She stepped back, dropping the magazine out. She slapped in a reload and pulled the slide back.

DiNozzo fired through the couch. Feathers and cotton flew under his onslaught. He paused after firing five shots.

Garrity stood. He swept his pistol in an arc as he fired to suppress them. He pushed the lever on the caulk gun arrangement in his other hand. Bullets and white ice flew across the room as he moved toward the window.

He jumped through the window, breaking the glass and wood.

Ziva and Tony ran for the window. McGee was out covering the front of the house, but they hadn't heard him shooting.

They found Garrity lying on his face. Gibbs had a knee on his shoulders, and a gun to the back of his head. McGee had cuffs in hand.

"You have the right to be silent." Gibbs stepped out of the way so McGee could put the cuffs on. "You have the right to an attorney. Do you understand?"

"Nice." DiNozzo grinned. "Looks like we're done."

"Take him down and book him, DiNozzo." Gibbs put his weapon away. "We'll have Abby test this spray gun, but it looks like that was the murder weapon."

DiNozzo dropped out of the window. He walked over, holstering his weapon. He grinned as he helped Garrity to his feet.

"Bet you wished you had stayed guarding that front desk now, don't you?" DiNozzo pulled his prisoner toward one of the Chargers the agency used.

"Ziva." Gibbs gestured with his thumb that she should go with them.

She dropped silently to the grass. She frowned at Cole Sear standing off on his own, but put it aside as she grabbed Garrity's other arm and helped him into the backseat of the car.

"A bulletproof vest." Ziva pulled his coat down over his shoulders to expose the protection.

"It's from work." Garrity sat on his hands as he glared at her.

"They'll be glad to have it back." DiNozzo got in the passenger side. "It also means I'll shoot you in the head if you give us any trouble."

"Gibbs won't like that." Ziva got behind the wheel. "Shoot him in the legs. He can survive that."

"You're right." DiNozzo half turned in his seat. "Which leg would you like to be shot in?"

Ziva pulled away from the curb in such a fashion that an answer was delayed as she sped down the street.

"Tony did that on purpose." McGee shook his head as the car vanished in the night.

Gibbs smiled slightly. Then he turned to the wrecked house. It was a crime scene again.

"Get your bag, McGee." He inspected the spray gun where it laid in the grass. "We have to process the scene. If we can't get him for murder, we can get him for trying to kill Federal agents."

"Right." McGee fled across the street where he and DiNozzo had set up their lookout spot.

Cole Sear stood on the sidewalk. He watched the front of the house without expression.

"I'll need to talk to Ducky and Abby about the lab tests to shore up the evidence I have for the Krullil case." He looked like that was the last thing on his mind.

Gibbs nodded. The courts would have everything when he was done. It would be up to the prosecution to handle things.

"Thanks." Sear walked toward his old car. He didn't seem happy about things, but he rarely smiled as far as Gibbs could remember.

McGee walked back from the neighboring house. He held his go bag in his hand. He watched as the doctor drove away.

"Tag and bag this first, McGee." Gibbs pointed at the spray gun. "We don't want it out here where someone could get at it."

McGee photographed the arrangement. He put it in a bag, and then in his kit. He photographed the pistol before unloading it and bagging it. That went in his kit next to the other gun.

He worked his way across the yard, into the house, and around the primary battle zone. He dug out bullets where he could. Abby could tell him which bullet belonged to which shooter with the more intact ones.

Gibbs waved at the Marines when they arrived to investigate the shootings. He filled them in on what had happened. Then he asked them to search for any stray round that might have flown into the neighborhood.

Gibbs walked around the house first, before stepping inside. He walked around the interior. He found a key in the back doorknob. He took it in a gloved hand and bagged it.

He had an idea of what had happened and why it had happened the way it did. All he needed was Garrity to confirm his suspicions. He doubted it would be that easy, but he planned to have some kind of statement to go with the spent bullets and frozen objects he had.

It didn't matter in the long run. He didn't need a confession with what he had. It would just be the icing on the cake.

McGee finished with his notes as Gibbs looked around for anything he might have missed.

"Let's see if Garrity has anything to say about this." Gibbs started for the other Charger hidden down the street. McGee picked up his bag and followed after him.

Gibbs took the keys from McGee and got behind the wheel. He always drove despite what his agents thought of it.

When they got teams of their own, they could drive.

He ignored McGee's hands on the dashboard as he cut through the base and headed back to the Naval Yard.

He hoped Garrity's ride was as painful as Ziva's driving could make it. It would soften him up for his interrogation.

How many more people would Garrity have killed to capitalize on what he had stolen?

Gibbs turned on the main thoroughfare heading home. He had a few more hours of work ahead of him.

It looked like they had an all nighter before they were done with this case.

Epilogue

The sun beat through the window of the bullpen where the major case squads operated. The orange of the walls looked like flame. Leroy Jethro Gibbs worked on a report while trying to ignore his two junior agents and coroner standing at the desk of his absent senior agent.

"I wonder what's in it." Timothy McGee leaned over the desk. "Maybe it's some kind of rare wine."

"I doubt it, McGee." Ziva David smiled. "Perhaps it is something from a woman. Tony has known so many of them."

"It's from Baltimore." Donald Mallard smiled. "It might be something from the police department."

"After all this time?" McGee and David gave him looks of unbelief.

"Once I received a letter ten years after the man who wrote it had died." Ducky smiled. "It was quite a shock really."

"Why was it a shock?" McGee asked.

"Because he said he would never talk to Ducky again." Gibbs broke in, leaning back in his chair.

"That's exactly right, Jethro." Mallard nodded at their commander. "The letter was an apology for the harsh words we had exchanged before he died."

Tony DiNozzo came into the room, clad in his typical suit and tie. He had his go bag slung over his shoulder. He paused behind everyone else.

"Who would send Tony a gift from Baltimore?" Ziva asked, hand in a gesture of dismissal.

"Lots of people." Tony frowned at the other three as they jumped. "Who sent me a gift from Baltimore?"

"We don't know." McGee turned. "We were curious."

"It was delivered to Autopsy, Tony." Ducky put his hands in his pockets as he leaned over the desk. "I brought it up here."

"Thanks, Duck." DiNozzo dropped his bag behind his desk as he sat down. He looked at the box with a hand raised. "This is some kind of prank, right?"

"Open it, DiNozzo, so we can get some work done." Gibbs called from his desk.

"Right, Boss." DiNozzo pulled off the two cards taped to the box's top. They both had his name on them, but the older looking card had familiar looking handwriting.

He opened the new card first. He quickly read the contents and put the card aside. He opened the other card and read that just as fast. He set that card aside to draw his knife.

McGee picked up the cards and read them.

"Chip Staley?" The name sounded familiar. He had heard it in the last few days somewhere.

"He was a detective I used to work with in Baltimore before I changed jobs." DiNozzo cut the ends of the box with his knife before he put it away. "I heard he had been shot, and had got out on disability. He died recently."

"So you weren't expecting this box from him?" Ziva crossed her arms.

"I hadn't talked to him in a long time." DiNozzo looked up. He seemed unsure if he should proceed and find out what was in the present from the dead man. "He used to be a prankster."

"Is that why you are afraid to open the box?" Her eyebrows raised at his hesitation.

"Maybe." Tony looked at the box.

"It should be fine." McGee handed back the cards. "Go ahead. Let's see what's inside the box."

DiNozzo picked up the box and shook it with the opened end pointed at his desk. A package of socks fell out.

"Nothing special." He put the box down and picked up the clear wrapper. "Just a bunch of tube socks."

Ziva picked up the cards. She frowned at what they said.

The first one was from Cole Sear:

Agent DiNozzo;

I found this package in the evidence room while looking for something else. I talked to Mrs. Staley, and she agreed that we should send it on.

Cole Sear.

The other note was from Chip Staley.

Hey, kid.

I wanted to give you these when I heard you were going over to the navy cops. I figured you would need things to help you run faster since you are so slow. I don't know what happened between you and Dan, but you were always a pal.

The Chipper.

"The Chipper?" Ziva put the cards down on Tony's desk.

"He liked to play golf." DiNozzo inspected the inside of the box. He used the pen to move it around without actually touching it. "Everyone called him Chip."

"Tube socks?" Ziva picked up the package. She flipped it around in her hands.

"I wouldn't." DiNozzo slid his chair back. "Chip liked practical jokes like I said."

The bag exploded in Ziva's hands. A cloud of white powder covered her face. She coughed as she backed up.

"Told you." DiNozzo opened his file cabinet. He pulled out a handkerchief and handed it over. "Smells like Lilac."

"Oh!" Ziva wiped her face with the piece of cloth.

"A small squib in a block of talcum powder." McGee smiled. "I haven't seen one of those since MIT."

"Good old Chip." DiNozzo looked at the mess his desk had become. "He must have planned it to blow up when I opened the package. Good thing you shook it up for me, Ziva. Thanks."

"You're not welcome." Ziva retreated towards the bathroom to clean up. "It's a good thing he's dead, or I would shoot him myself."

"One thing does bother me." DiNozzo picked up his blotter and dumped as much of the mess as he could in the garbage can next to his desk. "How did that thing wind up in the evidence room?"

"How long has Staley been dead?" McGee picked up some of the stray socks and dropped them into DiNozzo's trashcan. The detonation had ruined the ones closest to the small bomb.

"A few years, I guess." Tony started wiping his desk with another handkerchief. "I didn't keep in touch when I shifted over to NCIS."

"Gonna call Mrs. Staley?" McGee wiped his hands together. A cloud of dust drifted to the floor.

"I don't know." DiNozzo brushed the top of his monitor off. He shook his head at the dust. "That Chip. Always overdoing it."

McGee glanced over at Gibbs to see how he was taking things. His boss was on the phone. He had the look.

"We might have a call." Tim went to his own desk to get his bag.

Tony looked up. Gibbs was listening more intently than normal. He grabbed his bag. It looked like they were on their way to somewhere. He stood up and crossed to Ziva's area to grab her bag. He headed for the women's restroom.

"Better let Palmer know, Ducky." Tim slung his bag over his shoulder.

Tony kicked open the restroom door. A cry of outrage from another woman answered that.

"We got a call." He let the door swing shut.

Gibbs hung up the phone and stood. He looked around the bullpen. His team was assembling without him saying a word. That was good.

"We have a body at sea." He grabbed his own bag. "We're going to have to fly out and look things over."

"Ducky went downstairs to get Palmer." McGee reported.

"Let them know to meet us at the plane. We'll take them with us. They can bring the body home while we're investigating." Gibbs started for the door.

"What happened?" Ziva brushed the front of her shirt off as she took her bag from DiNozzo.

"A marine named Hudson was found in a crawlspace." Gibbs pressed the button to call the elevator. "It looks like parts of him were eaten."

"Really?" McGee paused as the doors opened.

"I doubt it was rats of extraordinary size, McScaredy." DiNozzo got on the elevator.

"And if it was, I will shoot them for you, McGee." Ziva brushed at the remains of white powder on her shirt.

"Let's go, McGee." Gibbs gestured with a hand. "Or I will shoot you."

The group rode down the elevator and passed through security. They grabbed a car to ride out to the naval air station where they would be flown out to the ship. Palmer pulled the body truck in behind the car to follow them to the airstrip.

Various methods of eating people were discussed by the junior agents as they rolled along. Wikipedia and Google were consulted as speculation on what could have caused the marine's death ran rampant.

Gibbs said nothing, keeping his theories to himself. He only liked to speculate when he had facts in hand. His gut whispered this was going to be a mess to deal with if the crew didn't want to be helpful.

It wouldn't be the first time he had strong armed a bunch of marines and swabbys to find out what had happened. It wouldn't be the last as long as he had his badge.

Gibbs wondered what Sear was doing looking around an evidence room in passing but dismissed it. It wasn't any of his business.

The End


End file.
